| Shop till you drop.
Well, where this wedding is concerned, I’ve just had
one of the busiest months yet.
I took a day off work so that I could try on more wedding
dresses, although I really think I tried on ‘my’
dress in McElhinney’s of Athboy a fortnight ago. Boy,
was that shop busy when I went in or what! On a Saturday,
it seemed to me that every bride in the Dublin/Kildare/Meath
environs was in this shop.
In McElhinney’s (http://www.mcelhinneysofathboy.com)
you are given a number (mine was 16 when I went in first)
and at the time they were only at number 6. I thought I would
have hours to wait, but as luck would have it, I was served
in less than an hour. It turned out that some of the other
numbers were in the coffee shop waiting until their number
was called. While I was waiting, I took a look at the dresses
on the rail in my size, and was able to select the gowns I
wanted to try on.
I have to commend McElhinney’s on this strategy. They
have hundreds of dresses but instead of them being arranged
by style, they are arranged on the rails by size. Simple yet
effective so you don’t need to wade through gown upon
gown that won’t fit only to find they don’t do
the one you like in your size. They also have a rule that
you can only try on a maximum of 5 gowns at any time. As it
happened, the dress that I’m now thinking of as ‘the
one’, wasn’t part of the original 5 I had selected.
I was down to my last two gowns and then I saw this dress
on another bride to be. I asked if they had it in my size
and they did so I put one of the original 5 back on the rail
and tried the other one on instead. I’m so pleased I
did. It’s very flattering and although I wasn’t
too sure about it when I tried it on, I now know I’m
going to compare every other gown to it.
The only inconvenience is the thought that for fittings and
alterations, it would involve an hour long trip to and from
Athboy every time. I phoned around to the other stockists
of this gown in the Dublin area and two of them point blank
refused to give me the price they sell this gown at over the
phone. I find that VERY strange and not at all conducive to
me wanting to visit their stores. The other one is approximately
€200 more expensive than McElhinney’s; their reasoning
behind that is that McElhinney’s sell you the gown off
the rail. This isn’t the case as I had already asked
the ladies when I was trying on the gowns and they order you
a ‘fresh’ gown. For the amount of money being
paid for some of these dresses, I would hope so!
Anyway, that was my experience with trying to source my dress
in Dublin. I don’t think I’ll be able to do it
for the price I want to pay. I had even asked one of the shops
could they match the price that I was quoted in Athboy and
they said they’d get back to me. They haven’t.
They’ve lost a sale. I’ll take my business elsewhere.
Since then, I’ve tried on dresses in a few other stores
and let me tell you, it’s not easy when you have a child
with you. Wedding dress stores are not child friendly.
I’ve also bought my shoes. Got them in Debenhams and
to be honest, it was my Mum who was with me at the time, who
pointed them out to me. I wasn’t in the store to look
at shoes but she is like a radar system. Anything wedding
related and she is on the lookout. Another thing done from
the list.
My mum also bought her outfit for the day. I wasn’t
expecting her to have it picked so early. It’s lovely
on her and she looks really classy. All she needs now is a
hat, shoes and a nice necklace.
We picked up our wedding rings on Saturday and although I’m
very happy with the rings themselves, I think the engraving
on the back is very rough to the touch and don’t feel
like it should be for the price we paid. Nevertheless, we
have them now and they are lovely.
That’s all for now,
Lynne
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